


Pretty Blue Eyes

by RoyaltyLaine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaltyLaine/pseuds/RoyaltyLaine
Summary: Belle’s lacking in the confidence department.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarieQuiteContrarie (SeaStar1330)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaStar1330/gifts).



> Inspired by the song Pretty Brown Eyes

He could watch her take inventory in his shop all day. She had long beautiful auburn hair with the most angelic face and a smile that was so contagious that he only needed to think of her and a smile would appear on his lips. Pretty Blue Eyes was the nickname he gave her in his head whenever she looked at him. Her gaze didn't last long before she would shy away from his eye contact. Her name was Belle, and she was more beautiful than a summer morning after the rain. It was too bad she couldn't see it for herself.

Belle lacked self-confidence, well, she was missing it entirely. She was undeniably the prettiest girl in Storybrooke, but she never saw that in herself. Instead, she saw a pale-faced girl, with no curves, and knobby knees. She felt like she had the body of a 14-year-old boy instead of the stunning 30-year-old woman that she was.

She worked at Mr. Gold's pawnshop part-time on the weekends, helping the nice gentleman with taking inventory for his antiques. For the first couple of weeks, she was quiet, only coming for 3 hours to do her job and then leaving. Even when he tried to engage her in small talk, her answers were quick and straight to the point. Gold assumed that she just needed some time to get used to him, but the weeks turned into months and still nothing.

Finally, after months of playing around with the idea in his head, he decides to ask her out on a date.

"I'm sorry Mr. Gold, but I already have plans." She told him with her eyes averted from him. Shyly, looking down at her shoes. Gold wanted to cup her by the chin and lift her head up and tell Belle that she had no reason to be bashful around him, that she was beautiful and he just wanted to make her feel special. But Belle didn't believe she was anything special, just a Plain Jane with nothing unique about her. So why would she embarrass herself by saying yes to a date she knew she would ruin.

It went on like that for months. Gold would ask her out every week just to be turned down by her already scheduled plans. So one night he followed her, to see who she was with that made her want to reject him so many times. Maybe she had a boyfriend she wasn't telling him about, perhaps a group of friends who didn't want to hang out with a 40-year-old man like himself, or maybe she just had no desires to go out on a date with him. Whatever it was, he wanted to find out.

She arrived at Granny's diner alone and went inside. The diner was mostly vacant besides her and a couple of people sitting at the bar. He waited for an hour to see if a mystery man would join her, but none did. She was eating alone, no one there to talk to her, no one there to stare into her pretty blue eyes, no one there to pick up her tab to make her feel secure. He couldn't understand why she would reject him just to eat alone. She wasn't being fair to him or herself.

Belle exited the diner, and Mr. Gold got out of his car.

"Belle."

She turns to see him. "Mr. Gold?"

He walks over to her. "What are you doing eating alone?"

Belle bows her head. "It's better this way."

"Better? How is this better? I've wanted to go out with you for months, but you tell me no just so that you can eat alone?"

"You wouldn't understand." She said nervously fidgeting her keys.

"Then help me to understand." She doesn't answer him. Mr. Gold takes a step closer to her. He didn't want to be overbearing, but she needed to know this. "I think it's you who doesn't understand."

"What do you mean?"

He cupped her chin to bring her gaze up to meet his. "Belle I see those eyes, even when you try to hide them from me, I see them. Every day you walk out of my shop feeling less than what you're truly are, and it breaks my heart. Belle, you're so beautiful and I know you can't see it, but that's what you are."

"I'm not beautiful, and if we were to date, sooner or later you would see it too."

"Don't hide behind the fear that one day I'll stop loving you, because if I need to tell you that you're beautiful every single day, I will, and it will be the truth." Without her permission, he kisses her deeply. Something he's been wanting to do since the first day she walked into his shop. She didn't push him away. Belle was longing for him too. Maybe it was time to start listening to what her heart was telling her.

"Can you give me a chance to show you how beautiful you are?" he asked, staring into her pretty blue eyes.

"Yes." She was beautiful, if not truly, at least to him.


End file.
